The invention xe2x80x9cWildLife Homesxe2x80x9d generally refers to residential and commercial real estate development, zoos, animal cages, wildlife management, and the Endangered Species Act.
Some of the more progressive real estate developers are building developments within environments where wildlife is able to enter and exit the developments freely, but no one has attempted to capture a wildlife habitat in the planned community with a traditional cage or a cage composed of connected buildings. In Yellowstone National Park, some homes are built on large estates bordering the park, where wild animals can travel through the community. In other places, communities have been built along streams, allowing residents to participate in recreational fishing conveniently. Residential homes are frequently situated only a few feet apart from each other and are typically built on land that has been flattened by bulldozers, cleared completely of trees, and cemented.
Many people complain about the disappearing natural habitats, but, for the most part, developers have destroyed the maximum amount of natural habitats to allow for the maximum number of constructed homes.
Zoos have had relative success with respect to saving some animal species, but limits on zoo resources prevent zoos from saving all animals. Non economic problems include animals being unable to breed in zoos, animals breeding without natural selection, animals in small cages having limited mobility, animals losing hunting instincts, elimination of animal social groups and structures due to small animal populations, and the inability of animals to thrive in artificial environments.
Animal cages are made to prevent animals from escaping enclosed environments, but not to allow animals to survive unaided, as the animals would exist in their natural environments.
Wildlife management frequently protects wildlife habitats through buffer zones, such as farm land, timber land, and highways, but buffer zones do not solve several problems: animals crossing buffer zones risk being hunted and being hit by cars; hunters frequently enter wildlife habitats, legally or illegally, making predators"" prey scarce and forcing predators to attack domestic animals for food; herbivores compete with domestic cattle for crops and gardens; logging companies unfavorably alter the environment; and people take an entrenched position on an unreasonable issue. This additional pressure on animal life, even in parks, decreases the populations of predators and scavengers, thus increasing the range that an individual group requires for a vibrant population.
The Endangered Species act generally requires that there be a plan in place to save each endangered species. This is becoming increasingly difficult. Zoos are unable to do it. The government and environmental groups cannot afford to purchase the requisite amount of land, maintain sufficient wildlife staff, recreate species"" natural habitats, reintroduce disappearing species, and provide long term protection for the endangered animals. Current economic plans to save habitats and endangered species include: government subsidized parks, picture safaris, ecology tours, and hunting and fishing license fees, including big game hunting of endangered species in African and Indian parks. Habitats are rapidly disappearing permanently due to population pressure. For example, China, which has a temperate forest rainfall zone similar to the U.S., with an extremely large diversified exotic wildlife habitat, faces even greater population pressures that are compounded by the building of the Yangtze River dam, which will submerge thousands of square miles of land.
The invention xe2x80x9cWildLife Homesxe2x80x9d is an extremely large cage surrounding a wildlife habitat, built by connecting residential homes or commercial buildings to enclose a specific area. The invention is a new use for residential homes, a new way to build animal cages, and a new method for protecting wildlife, in particular, endangered species. The benefits and usefulness include:
Making the Endangered Species Act desirable and economical, without governmental or charitable subsidies;
Returning animals to a location from which the animals had disappeared (for example, a city or suburban park surrounded by a residential home cage, with black bears, bison, elk, bobcats, moose, red wolves, predatory birds, and the like);
Protecting animals in a location where the animals already exist;
Promoting survival of species whose natural habitat is disappearing, by recreating the identical environment inhabited by those speciesxe2x80x94for example, recreating the temperate forest zone in China which is becoming less available to animal species, due to increased Chinese human population pressures, and introducing Chinese animal species in the form of 2 pandas, 6 species of monkeys, 5 species of giant 3-foot squirrels (including two that fly), several species of deer, Asiatic bears, 24 species of pheasants, and possibly the nearly extinct 135-pound Korean or Siberian leopard into the recreated habitat;
Promoting the survival of species that have been unable to survive or breed in zoos, such as the giant panda, platypuses, and Galapagos marinc 20 iguanas;
Promoting the survival of endangered species by designing and creating habitats specifically for the endangered animals, such as migrating birds like the wood duck, trumpet swan, bog turtle, and eagles;
Allowing for a non-zoo existence for animals which have become extinct in the wild, such as the California condor, the black-footed ferret, and the red wolf;
Reversing the trend of relentless habitat loss for threatened and endangered species;
Possibly promoting the development of land in areas where development was previously prohibited, while inhibiting the amount of land actually developed, as ninety to ninety-eight percent of buildable land will be left unbuilt for the benefit of the habitat;
Dramatically reducing the threats of human over population posed to wildlife bybuilding residential homes which will act as a cage around a recreated wildlife sanctuary; and
Decreasing the size of a geographical area necessary for a vibrant diverse population by eliminating the threat of poaching and thus allowing the game animal percentage to increase, as well as the number of carnivores and scavengers.
This invention is advantageous in that, unlike zoos, the object of the invention is to create wildlife niches, enclosed by the building composed cages, which would be planned in such a way that the niche would be self-sustaining such that natural wildlife food chain cycles would prevail and reproduction would occur by natural selection. Though, for various reasons, some animals may be placed in the enclosed habitat with the intention that those animals do not reproduce.
Another advantage that this invention has over zoos is that, within the enclosed habitat, animals would be kept together in sustainable populations including herds, troops, prides and packs, allowing the animals to maintain the social structure that is present in the wild, but nonexistent in zoos.
Another advantage that this invention has over zoos is that habitats enclosed by buildings which utilize the underwater tunnel cage and allow migrating fish to exit the enclosed habitat could be used as a fish nursery, possibly for threatened species of commercial value to fishermen, suich as sturgeon, salmon, shad, rock, herring, perch, and others.